Week 2 of the 2011 USCL Season reminded just about everyone
how tough the competition is each year as the New England Nor'easters, the 2010
champions, lost for the second straight week, this time to the New York
Knights. Leading the victory for New York was GM Giorgi Kacheishvili and GM
Pascal Charbonneau, who scored impressive wins over IM David Vigorito and IM
Jonathan Yedidia. Meanwhile, the Carolina Cobras, who have struggled in the
past 2 seasons, pulled off an upset of the Philadelphia Inventors, thanks to FM
Ron Simpson's win over FM Karl Dehmelt. The Baltimore Kingfishers beat the New
Jersey Knockouts, 2.5-1.5, after NM Jared Defibaugh was able to convert a long
rook endgame over FM Arthur Shen in a game that finished third in the Game of
the Week competition. Lastly, the Boston Blitz were held to a tie by the
Manhattan Applesauce, despite a spectacular win by SM Jorge Sammour-Hasbun over
IM Lev Milman.

The Western Division saw a few upsets and a few expected
results. The Los Angeles Vibe took out the Saint Louis Arch Bishops, thanks to
an exciting win by GM Melikset Khachiyan over GM Hikaru Nakamura, the superstar
of the Arch Bishops. On the same night, the Seattle Sluggers defeated the very
tough Arizona Scorpions, due to NM Joshua's Sinanan's win over NM David
Adelberg. On Wednesday night, however, there were no surprises as the Chicago
Blaze, with a line-up consisting of GM Yury Shulman, GM Josh Fridel, and GM
Gurevich crushed a struggling Miami Sharks team, 3.5-0.5. So far, Chicago is
definitely the team to beat in the West, with a combined match score of 7-1 in
the first 2 weeks! To round out the week, the closely rated San Francisco
Mechanics and Dallas Destiny drew their match, after GMs Patrick Wolff and
Jesse Kraai weren't able to finish off IMs Salvijus Bercys and Conrad Holt in
near-winning positions.

Game Of The Week

SM Jorge Sammour-Hasbun (BOS) - IM Lev Milman (MAN)
1-0

Sammour-Hasbun is no stranger to this award, as he has won
it 4 times in his career, not including winning the 2007 Game of the Year
award.

Unsurprisingly, this game nearly won Game of the Week, ending
up second. This marks the first time a GM has won the upset award, but it is
completely deserved as this was a 234 point upset of the strongest player who
has ever played in the league.

Most Exciting Match

Arizona Scorpions vs. Seattle Sluggers 1.5-2.5

Although this match wasn't filled with shocking tactical
blows or crazy attacks, each game was extremely hard-fought and the result of
the match certainly wasn't clear until the very end.Best Move

This was pretty simple--a spectacular move ended a
spectauclar game...

Endgame Surplus
Last week my highlights did not include any endgames, mainly
because there simply weren't any endgames that were particularly interesting to
me. The opposite of that was true this week, as there were several complex
endgames I'd like to share with the readers:

GM Hikaru
Nakamura (STL) - GM Melikset Khachiyan (LA) 0-1

GM
Khachiyan told me after the game that at this point he felt he would have very
good winning chances. Given that he only had a a few minutes left on his clock
to make this assessment and finish the game, it is quite impressive that his
evaluation was spot on. 41.Kg1 Drawing this endgame for White is a
matter of using his Rook to stop Black's pawns from behind, using his King to
slow them down, and most importantly using his c-pawn as a decoy to deflect
Black's bishop. Finding all the defensive resources for White is hard, finding
the correct order to use them in is much harder! 41...g4 42.c4 Ke5 43.Re7+
Kd4 44.Kh2 Bf1 45.Kg3?! Missing the first chance to draw (45.c5! afterwhich
White is just barely able to save his skin 45...Bb5 (45...Kxc5 46.Rxe3=) 46.Kg3
h5 (46...Kd3 47.Kxg4 Kd2 48.Rxa7 e2 49.Re7= White is going to capture
all of Black's pawns) 47.Kf4 e2 48.c6! Kd3 49.c7 Ba6 50.Rd7+ Kc2 51.Re7
Kd2 52.Rd7+ Ke1 53.Kg3! opening the f-file for the rook to harass the Black
king, preventing the e-pawn from queening 53...Kf1 54.Rf7+ Kg1 55.Re7=) 45...h5
(45...Bxc4 46.Rxa7 e2 47.Re7 h5 48.Kf2 h4 49.Ke1 Bxa2 50.Kxe2=)

GM Rogelio
Barcenilla (ARZ) - FM Costin Cozianu (SEA) 1/2-1/2
After
reaching a roughly equal late middlegame, GM Barcenilla began to play very
strongly and outplayed his opponent to reach the following endgame, which is
winning for White: 42.Ne5+! Due to Black's weaknesses and White's
enormous space advantage, there was definitely more than one winning plan.
However this move is just begging to be played! 42...dxe5 43.fxe5 Ne6! Fighting
back and forcing White to find a winning continuation. What's really
interesting here to me is that normally 3 connected passed pawns would bulldoze
over a knight or 2, but as this game shows, wielding connected passers is never
easy 44.Bxh5+? Securing the draw, but giving away the win. Perhaps
Barcenilla had panicked or simply didn't want to blunder the game away in time-pressure.
(44.d6 Naturally, was winning. Now follows 44...N8c7! 45.Bd5! Ng5 46.d7 (46.dxc7
Qxc7 47.Qc4+- is simpler but will require some more accurate moves to
finish the game) 46...h4 47.gxh4 Nge6 48.Bxe6 Nxe6 49.Qc4! Kf7 50.c7
Qxc7 51.Qxc7 Nxc7 52.d8Q+-) 44...Kxh5 45.Qxf5+ Ng5 46.Qd7 Qa8 47.d6

Now
White has his 3 connected passers against 2 very confused knights, but
surprsingly the position is drawn 47...Kg6 48.Qb7 White is forced to
repeat moves, as pushing his passed pawns endangers his king (48.Kf1 Stepping
out of the pin, threatening c6-c7, actually loses to 48...Ng7! 49.c7 Qf3+
50.Ke1 Ne4! 51.c8Q Qf2+ 52.Kd1 Qd2#) 48...Qd8 49.Qd7 (49.c7 Nxc7 50.dxc7
Qd2+= and Black gives a perpetual check) 49...Qa8 50.Qb7 Qd8 51.Qd7 Qa8 Game
drawn by repetition, a very exciting repetition ½-½